We ain't gonna pay for our water

Inspired by Kevin Higgins' highly satirical piece (but is it a poem, Kevin? I think it works as well without the artificial line breaks) on Clare Daly's website, I had to have a go

We ain’t gonna pay for our water

They’ve tried to impose this but we’re gonna fight ‘em.

These taxes keep cropping up ad infinitum.

The long hand of history’s gonna indict ‘em.

We’ll soon have no money for porter.

And they tell us Sky Sports is a luxury item?

No, we ain’t gonna pay for our water.

They bring out each new mobile phone far too fast.

If you cannot keep up, you’ll be left in the past.

My wife has an S3, the family’s aghast,

but thankfully Christmas will sort ‘er.

But it’s all costing money – how long will it last?

Oh, we ain’t gonna pay for our water.

They tell us not to spend all our time in the shower,

ensuring the dial’s not switched to full power.

But our kids can’t get clean in a mere half an hour –

it’s more like an hour and a quarter.

They give you that look that would make grown men cower.

Oh, we ain’t gonna pay for our water.

We shout at the telly when the CEO speaks

about giving the contract another few tweaks.

I don’t think we’ve flushed the damned toilet for weeks –

the smell permeates each aorta.

And they’ll charge us a fortune to come fix our leaks?

Oh, we ain’t gonna pay for our water.

We’re angry as hell, yeah, we’re going berserk.

We’re not Miley Cyrus, we ain’t gonna twerk

while they roger us roughly with a wink and a smirk,

each mother, each son and each daughter.

It’s hard only going to the toilet in work.

No, we ain’t gonna pay for our water.

We’ve torn up the forms that this Bord Uisce sent.

The PPS numbers have garnered dissent.

Our pockets are empty, the money’s all spent –

it’s tied up in bricks and in mortar

(and in sunshine resorts that we like to frequent.)

Oh, we ain’t gonna pay for our water.

They said of oul’ Ireland our rivers run free

but we’re taxed every time that we go for a wee.

It’s a stream of expense that flows down to the sea,

with no sign that it’s gonna get shorter.

St. Brigid, St. Bernadette, please pray for me,

for we ain’t gonna pay for our water.

So remember the heroes of nineteen sixteen.

Did they have to fork out to keep themselves clean?

Or pay when they sat on the outside latrine

to be butchered like lambs to the slaughter?

So Ireland abú, let the masses convene!

Oh, we ain’t gonna pay for our water.